Sign (semiotics)

About: Sign (semiotics) is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 4080 publications have been published within this topic receiving 70333 citations. The topic is also known as: semiotic sign.

The semiotic engineering of user interface languages

Abstract: Semiotic approaches to design have recently shown that systems are messages sent from designers so users. In this paper we examine the nature of such messages and show that systems are messages that can send and receive other messages—they are metacommunication artefacts that should be engineered according to explicit semiotic principles. User interface languages are the primary expressive resource for such complex communication environments. Existing cognitively-based research has provided results which set the target interface designers should hit, but little is said about how to make successful decisions during the process of design itself. In an attempt to give theoretical support to the elaboration of user interface languages, we explore Eco's Theory of Sign Production (U. Eco, A Theory of Semiotics , Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1976) and build a semiotic framework within which many design issues can be explained and predicted.

The gradual emergence of phonological form in a new language

Abstract: The division of linguistic structure into a meaningless (phonological) level and a meaningful level of morphemes and words is considered a basic design feature of human language. Although established sign languages, like spoken languages, have been shown to be characterized by this bifurcation, no information has been available about the way in which such structure arises. We report here on a newly emerging sign language, Al-Sayyid Bedouin Sign Language, which functions as a full language but in which a phonological level of structure has not yet emerged. Early indications of formal regularities provide clues to the way in which phonological structure may develop over time.

The semiotics of French gestures

Abstract: FOREWORD BY IVAN FONAGY PREFACE ACKNOWLEDGMENTS NOTATION I. Determining the Relevant Features of a Gestural Expression: An Intracultural Experimental Study II. The Iconic and Cultural Nature of Gesture: An Intercultural Experimental Study III. Physical Components of the Gestural Sign IV. Semantic Fields of the Gestural Sign V. Mimic Representation VI. The Relationship between Signifier and Signified: Motivation VII. An Application: The Motivation of Refusal VIII. Gesture and Speech CONCLUSION APPENDIXES REFERENCES INDEX

Under the Sign of Saturn

Abstract: Susan Sontag's third essay collection brings together her most important critical writing from 1972 to 1980. In these provocative and hugely influential works she explores some of the most controversial artists and thinkers of our time, including her now-famous polemic against Hitler's favourite film-maker, Leni Riefenstahl, and the cult of fascist art, as well as a dazzling analysis of Hans-Jurgen Syberberg's "Hitler, a Film from Germany". There are also highly personal and powerful explorations of death, art, language, history, the imagination and writing itself.